All That's Best of Dark and Bright
by Dee12
Summary: A collection of 25 one-shots and drabbles for round four of the Twi25 all centering on Rosalie. Pairings and quality may vary.


The Twilight Twenty-Five  
thetwilight25[dot]livejournal[dot]com

Prompt: #23- Under  
Pen name:  Dee12  
Pairing: none  
Rating: T - some strong language

Photos for prompts 1, 7, 13, 19, & 25 can be found here:  
community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/16325[dot]html

Disclaimer: They are not mine, but I wish they were. I could use the millions.

Summary: #23 – in which all the boys love Rosalie Hale.

**Super fun story notes of a (debatably) important nature**: This one-shot is pre-Twilight canon, and is told through the eyes of several OC's. There are no scene breaks, instead flashbacks are denoted by italicized dialogue – any dialogue not in italics is taking place in real time. That's everything, I think. I hope you all enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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_**Dig, Lazarus! Dig!**_

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Rochester, New York 1933

Tommy Newberry saw the body in Miller's Pond that afternoon when he carted a blanket and Marla Hobbs off into the woods for a round of clandestine, feverish touching. He tells us this – lingering on insignificant details like how his lips had been suckered to Marla's slender neck, how his fingers delved into previously forbidden territory between Marla's thighs, how his shoulders bared crescent shaped indents that lasted for the remainder of the day ("she moans so loud, I thought I was gonna go deaf in that ear"). And though our curiosity on all matters related to sex would have dictated Tommy fill in the grey areas surrounding taste, smell, and consistency, this time the knowledge that Marla Hobbs – demure daughter of the Sunday school teacher at Our Lady of Perpetual Peace – was a moaner passes through our minds without wedging itself between a single fold.

"All of a sudden, Marla shuts up, and then she gets real stiff…"

When Tommy reaches the point in his tale where penis-related bravado is no longer appropriate, anxiety begins to radiate throughout the room. This is the bit we'd all dreaded hearing; the discovery of those legs sticking out from underneath that bright green thicket of pondweeds in all of their inharmoniously pale white glory.

He had time, Tommy says, in between the moment where Marla ran off screaming, and the police arrived with a rubbernecking crowd in tow, to make his way down to the pond. Waste deep in floating scum, crickets buzzing in his ears.

"I just…I had this feeling in my gut that it was her. And I didn't want to see her like that, but I had to know for sure. I had to see it firsthand to know if we should give up hoping."

Tommy tells us that when he got a full view of that body floating face down, of that dingy cream colored dress and once perfect golden hair ruined by clumps of mud, he tells us that it felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the world. Like his lungs had collapsed. And as he gently turned her over, he says he braced himself for the image of bloated, soggy flesh.

"My uncle, he saw a lot of things during the war…bodies so waterlogged you couldn't even imagine they'd once been human. But, Rosalie? I swear to god, I've never seen her look more beautiful."

Before "missing" persons' posters, before there was to be the uniformity of black attire keeping us outwardly bonded together in grief, there was just a Saturday night in Oliver Battle's basement, a bottle of Tennessee whiskey, and the overpowering stench of lovesickness. Oliver, whose grandmother was deaf as a post and fond of bidding goodnight at sunset, had the perfect home for the more heathen impulses among us. With the help of an intricate web of lies to our parents concerning plans for the evening, we gathered at Oliver's passing a bottle back and forth, loosening our tongues with each drop.

"_I can't believe she's marrying that phony chump_."

"_Are you kidding? If Royce King called me 'sweetheart' today, I'd let you mugs pick out the frilliest dress you can find. If it means I can stop bagging egg cartons, I'm all for it_."

That night, in the middle of the floor had been a copy of the Daily Bugle folded in half with the society page face up – Royce King II with his arm wrapped around a smiling Rosalie, mocked us in black and white. The blurb was read aloud twenty times, each one of us delivering it in a voice more dramatic than the other until it ended in a flourish of swears when Jamie Brooks decided to substitute "Royce King" with "Peckerhead".

The jealousy burned as hotly as the booze that was rolling down our throats – Rose had never been known to spark decorum and saintliness in us poor, teenaged males. Rosalie Hale, of the Rochester Hales, whose beauty was touted from county to county, sent boys like us freefalling into puberty with just the bat of an eyelash. Rosalie's smile put bass into voices once known for their childishly high pitch. The sunlight hitting Rosalie's blonde hair at just the right angle put peach fuzz on previously bare upper lips. The sway of Rosalie's hips, the catalyst for greeting a new day with embarrassingly sticky sheets.

We were the heretics she burned – content to pine and perish in silence with our fantasies until a simple wedding announcement in a once ignored section of the local paper.

"…_Peckerhead II descended from a long line of over privileged rat bastards…_"

None of us thought we'd ever stand a chance with Rosalie – we were too poor, or too young, or too short, or too gangly, or too fat, or too baby-faced, or too pockmarked, but the dream kept us going. The one girl that made our skin hum and our blood sing kept us connected.

We were a confederation of 'never was'.

"_I only wanted to kiss her once. Just once_."

That night was the first time the idea to bury our love for Rose had ever been broached. Oliver took the basement steps two at a time, and returned with a cigar box in his hands.

"_Enough's enough_. _Everything that reminds us of her goes into this box, and this box goes into the ground_."

Oliver pried the lid open letting us all gaze at what'd been his most prized possession – a few strings of blonde hair retrieved from a brush. His eulogy, a daring tale that involved asking to use the washroom while delivering milk to the Hales, and when he finished Oliver collapsed to the floor in a drunken heap.

"_Here lies Rosalie Hale – ashes to fucking ashes_."

Our bitterness over fiancés and the cruelty of the universe was all but forgotten four days later when Rosalie went missing.

Some of us joined the search parties. Some of us canvassed the city covering every available surface with posters of her face. Some of us, devout Catholics to the end, kept candles burning. We watched as Mr. and Mrs. Hale, once so stately in their self importance that they sparkled like diamonds, became ashen shells of sunken eyes and worry lines. We watched as Royce carried on as though nothing had happened at all.

We watched, we waited, we prayed. Twenty-eight days later our answer floated on top of muskgrass.

Now gathered in Oliver's basement, we huddle around the open cigar box.

Tommy holds up a dirty blue ribbon, the one he took from her dress that day at the pond ("I just couldn't help it"), and places it inside.

Arthur Hopseed goes next – fishing a crumpled matchbook from the pockets of his trousers. He tells us about a Christmas party the Andersons threw two years ago; how he gets terribly nervous in crowds sometimes and he had to step out onto the balcony in hopes that fresh air, and a bit of quiet would restore his equilibrium. He says he found Rosalie leaning against the railing while twirling a cigarette in her hand.

"_Hey, Alan, got a light?" _

"I didn't care that she got my name wrong, she spoke to me."

Peter Thompson has a pair of stockings he liberated from the Hales' clothesline, Vinnie Bertolucci has a letter he lacked the guts to send ("Goodbye, my love. Goodbye"), we fill the box with a motley collection of trinkets and pass it off to James Rhodes. The mortician's son had been given the honors of slipping the pieces of our hearts inside to rest with Rosalie.

Three days pass, another night in the Battle's basement, another bottle of whiskey. James hasn't stopped pacing, and his eyes seem to be fighting to pop out of his skull.

"I know what I heard, I know what I saw...I'm not crazy...I'm not crazy…"

He tells us about creeping down to the viewing room that night, about the door being slightly ajar, about the voices coming from inside:

"_I still think this is too risky. Being able to handle one or two people is __**not**__ the same as a church full_."

"_I can control myself_."

"_You don't understand…_"

"_No, __**you**_ _don't understand_. _I'm giving my family this much – I owe it to them_. _Stop projecting your weaknesses_."

"_Three taps, that's the signal. That's how you'll know it's me_."

"_Well, who else should I be expecting_? _Jesus_?"

"He didn't see me – I ducked around the corner before he could, but I'm telling you guys– Edward Cullen walked out of that room alone."

James won't stop pacing, and his eyes won't return to their rightful place, and his fingers, his fingers won't stop drumming against the cigar box containing the symbols of our affection. The one that should be underground with Rosalie Hale.

"I'm sorry, but I had to get out of there. Rosalie was smirking; I swear to God, she was."


End file.
